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In today's Underraildevelopment update, the honorable Styg shares the game's latest changelog and reveals a new mechanic that he's been working on - the noise system. Here's an excerpt:

Hey guys, while the rest of the team is working on wrapping up the remaining content (a few obligatory teaser screenshot included below), I took the time to work on some of the last game mechanic stuff to be implemented.

Most importantly, I implemented a noise system so the player will now have to consider more than just visual perception when handling a hostile area. This system works in a simple manner - certain actions, mostly relate to combat, such as firing weapons, grenade explosions, etc now emit a certain level of noise that travels through the map, with walls and other obstacles dampening their propagation (with certain thick walls doing so drastically). This will cause certain weapons - crossbows, knives and silenced pistols (and to lesser extent sledgehammers), will now have an edge over other weapon types when doing a stealth assassination.

In addition to this, a lot of NPCs will now holler for help on their turn if they are not stunned or incapacitated, so it's important to dispose of them quickly and silently if you want to avoid fighting the whole camp.

These changes will undoubtedly make some encounters more difficult so we will go through most problematic of them to make sure they are not too ridiculous.

[...] Concerning the content - there's just one "biome" in Deep Caverns to be done before the "final event" in the game, but after that, as I mentioned before, we have to go back and rework some old areas and sprinkle a bit more flavor across the world.

Before we can do that, however, we'll need to recharge our batteries for the next three weeks by ditching our underground coding facilities and getting some Mediterranean sand in our toes (at least in my case). In the meantime, let us know how you like these changes.
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See the full update for the changelog. So, a three week vacation. I'm guessing that summer release date isn't on the table anymore.

I love Styg's work and his approach to development. Here's a guy who's interested in quality and doesn't care about anything else. The slow but steady transformation of this game from the early ideas to what we have today is fucking amazing (something that not a single Kickstarter delivered despite claims of transparency).

Spazmo: Odds are, something you like very much sucks. Why? Because this is RPG Codex.

I love Styg's work and his approach to development. Here's a guy who's interested in quality and doesn't care about anything else. The slow but steady transformation of this game from the early ideas to what we have today is fucking amazing (something that not a single Kickstarter delivered despite claims of transparency).

Sure, they release poorly designed games that range from "bad" (PoE) to "cute" (Shadowrun) or "good foundation to build on later" (WL2), which is nice and all, but if you want a well designed, well thought through game where quality is the only thing that matters, you're out of luck.

Spazmo: Odds are, something you like very much sucks. Why? Because this is RPG Codex.

Sure, they release poorly designed games that range from "bad" (PoE) to "cute" (Shadowrun) or "good foundation to build on later" (WL2), which is nice and all, but if you want a well designed, well thought through game where quality is the only thing that matters, you're out of luck.

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You've certainly arrived at the end of your road to Damascus on this topic. I guess I'll have to lead the Kick-zerai myself!

Sure, they release poorly designed games that range from "bad" (PoE) to "cute" (Shadowrun) or "good foundation to build on later" (WL2), which is nice and all, but if you want a well designed, well thought through game where quality is the only thing that matters, you're out of luck.

I love Styg's work and his approach to development. Here's a guy who's interested in quality and doesn't care about anything else. The slow but steady transformation of this game from the early ideas to what we have today is fucking amazing (something that not a single Kickstarter delivered despite claims of transparency).

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I'm not sure I'd describe a development cycle of (close to) a decade as an achievement.

I love Styg's work and his approach to development. Here's a guy who's interested in quality and doesn't care about anything else. The slow but steady transformation of this game from the early ideas to what we have today is fucking amazing (something that not a single Kickstarter delivered despite claims of transparency).

Well, if we depend from another backer platform, we are fucked. There is no chance in the world that someone will believe in a new Kickstarter after the bubble of 2018 and the scandals involving EA money.

No one will discuss how long the games took to be developed. It seems that you have the misplaced idea that game development should be guided by your own interests in posting news. If a Studio finishes a game fast with content, it’s good, professional. Otherwise, it’s bad. Just because someone does a lot of stuff in little time it doesn’t mean will be good, you know?

I'm not sure I'd describe a development cycle of (close to) a decade as an achievement.

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What? I don’t even.

I don’t think the Gates of Paradise could be called an achievement, Lorenzo Ghiberti. Sorry, you took too long.

The achievement is the masterpiece Styg is delivering. How long he took? Who cares! I bet that there is a lot of achievers in the industry of mobile games. LOL. Real quality is not measured in expectations about how fast something should be delivered.

A guy made a great game with great mechanics that's better than most games out there but it's not an achievement because he took too long?

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Who said this? Because I didn't - I said a long development cycle isn't an achievement in itself. I'm sure Blizzard took the utmost care in carefully reiterating on Diablo's 3 building blocks during the 11 years it was being developed.

I was being facetious, mostly because I wanted to comment on the dichotomy you drew between indie game development and Kickstarter game development. It's true that Kickstarter game development resembles publisher-funded game development quite a lot. This is a disaster...if you believe publisher-funded games can't possibly be good. Last I checked, the Codex top 70 RPG's of all time was filled with them and had barely any indie games to speak of.

Who said this? Because I didn't - I said a long development cycle isn't an achievement in itself. I'm sure Blizzard took the utmost care in carefully reiterating on Diablo's 3 building blocks during the 11 years it was being developed.

I was being facetious, mostly because I wanted to comment on the dichotomy you drew between indie game development and Kickstarter game development. It's true that Kickstarter game development resembles publisher-funded game development quite a lot. This is a disaster...if you believe publisher-funded games can't possibly be good. Last I checked, the Codex top 70 RPG's of all time was filled with them and had barely any indie games to speak of.

Wikipedia says development began in 2008.

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You're a fucking idiot.

crojipjip:
going against conventions sounds power consuming. i will think about it on the toilet

I was mostly being facetious because I wanted to comment on the dichotomy you drew between indie game development and Kickstarter game development. It's true that Kickstarter game development resembles publisher-funded game development quite a lot. This is a disaster...if you believe publisher-funded games can't possibly be good. Last I checked, the Codex top 70 RPG's of all time was filled with them and had barely any indie games to speak of.